soon i hope to join the USTA. i'm at best a level 3.5 player, and normally a 2.5 - 3.0. i practice every day it's not raining and even sometimes when it is (surprisingly this does have its benefits as it is very easy to see what sort of spin one places on the ball thanks to water being flung via centrifical force). the reason im jealous? -- i don't think i'll ever be good enough, but it sure won't stop me from trying.

Fastest serve

About five years ago the fastest serve record was set by a 52 yr old racquet stringer. He used a computer model of all the big servers and used that to model his serve. The record was either 152 or 156 MPH(THIS WAS AT A FAST SERVE COMPETION UNDER REGULATION FOR THE RECORD TO STAND)
The record stood only for a few months and a pro broke it by a couple of MPH.
This if i remember was RODDICK.
So looks like there is room for a BIG SERVE at the public courts

Point missed

Originally Posted by aliciasace

dude it couldnt have been 150, that woulda been a world record....someones lying

That was the point (IT WAS A WORLD RECORD) I assume it was 152 as Roddick reclaimed the record in April 2004 at 153 or 156 . If you GOOGLE worls fastest serve you will see two speeds for Roddicks record serve. The racquet stringer is probably a little harder to find but, the information came from a tennis article as an interesting story.
So usually somebody lies for some kind of gain. And in this case i dont see any gain

YOU GOT THE WRONg POST

wait,are you saying that robynas telling the truth about hitting a world record serve?
o_0
because thats completely crazy, shes just some young girl whos pretending to be good at tennis.

I was actually talking about the record for the worlds fasrest serve being held by a racquet stringer for a couple of months until RODDICK topped it.
I wasn,t making a comment at all about the other girls post but living in Australia i do know that all speeds are measured in KPH.
The fastest womens serve is 127mph recorded by one of the WILLIAMS sisters.
This is the womens fastest serve. This is simply a matter of fact soRobynas serve cannot be faster or it would be recorded.

If one is serious about tennis besides subjective observation has to use objective measurments to get clear picture how a stroke is developing over time.
Technical improvement of the stroke and its recording for subjective observation has to go hand in hand with objective testing and measurment.

As I taught my player serve every year or so long took pictures or recorded movement of her serve motion, and based on it I would analyse what to correct or what details to add next.

As she was becoming more proficient technically I started to test her serve by objective measurments.

First, consistency of serve (how many times can she hit in service field out given number of trials).
Second, placement (how many times can she hit in predetermined part of the service field out of given number of trials)
Third, serve speed measurerment.
Here, I would like to say what I did to measure speed of her serve.At first I measured distance between the first bounce of the ball (in service field) and second bounce.The longer the distance the faster the serve, but I did not know the actual speed of the serve.Reading through the books I found reference to the book where the author by this distance determined the speed of the serve.As I could not get my hands on this book,I was looking for another solution.In one of "Tennis" magazines I found advertisement for StrokeMaxxer.This is device which one installs on tennis racquet measures speed of swing during actual ball strike.Knowing swing speed based on scale one can determine serve speed.
Later, I bought radar gun, and when I compared ball speeds recorded by radar gun and StrokeMaxxer their values coincided.

LAWN TENNIS:Good enough? Lol you must be really good ıf your goıng to joın the USTA! good luck on that also! (:

actually anyone can join the USTA. they will find a match for anyone from beginners through experts and rank one accordingly. it's only like $100 a year to join too. they provide the courts, lights, and a little coaching. thanks for the good luck wish though.. i need it.